


love sinks, hope floats

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Lando (Comics)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Break Up, Pre-ESB, dealing with grief and betrayal, han has not yet learned the power of friendship so he is a huge jerk, learning how to be a good leader, learning how to be a mature and responsible adult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 03:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10823307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: On the eighth day after Lando loses the Millenium Falcon, an aide (he has aides now?) finally slices through the encryption on the door to his new quarters, datapad in hand, grim-but-determined look on her face.(HowdareHan leave this, thisproblemto Lando, howdarehe abscond with Lando’s ship and leave Lando withresponsibilities, how dare he leave andnot come back -)





	love sinks, hope floats

**Author's Note:**

> I really did always mean to post this as a single one-shot once I had it all finished, but I also want to post something for May the 4th. This is by far the most polished of my WIPs, but I'm posting anonymously so that later, if I finish it and decide to post the whole thing as a one-shot, I can do it without anxiety. I'm posting the first 1.5k now; there's about 2.9k on the cutting room floor, and a lot yet to be written, but for now, enjoy!

Lando is never really sure, afterwards, how exactly it was that he met Han.

They were both a little drunk, first of all, and alcohol combined with tranquilizers is never good for a man’s head. Lando is about 80% sure that there was a bounty hunter involved - the bad taste in his mouth speaks towards a Mandalorian tranquilizing agent - and also, possibly, a Togruta girl. He remembers a lot of running, half-drunk and stumbling over each other every other moment. He doesn’t remember dragging the guy into the _Falcon_ and putting up the shields, but he must have, because now it’s the next morning and neither of them are dead and there aren’t any bounty hunters skulking around.

Lando will always remember this morning with a stunning sort of clarity.

“So,” says the guy he possibly saved from a bounty hunter, about half an hour after they wake up together on the floor with twin hangovers. “Nice ship you got here.”

Lando still can’t remember the guy’s name, but somehow the camaraderie clicks into place as easily as if they’ve known each other for years. He grins. “Oh, yeah. She’s old but the _Falcon_ ’s still beautiful.”

The guy gives the entire place a long, considering look. His eyes linger on many things: the modified wiring, the telltale signs of smuggling compartments in the floor, Lando himself. He smiles. It’s rough around the edges, but just this side of charming.

“I’m Han Solo. It’s a real _pleasure_ to meet you.”

“Lando Calrissian,” Lando says, taken despite himself.

“Say, Calrissian, did you happen to save my life from a bounty hunter last night?”

“Hm,” Lando says. “I seem to remember something of that kind.”

Solo’s smile grows wider. “Anything I can do to repay you?” It doesn't quite hit the roguishly-charming tone Solo’s obviously going for, but it’s cute. Solo, in general, is cute. Lando considers the man for a few moments.

“Well,” Lando says, drawing the word out into a drawl, “that depends, Solo. You got anything good to give?”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

They’re almost outrageously compatible. They travel together, they fly together, they laugh and drink together, they run from the authorities together, and at the end of the day, they go to bed together. Lando has met a lot of rogues in his time, and though he’s been good friends with many, none have clicked with him so quickly and neatly as this. For a year and a half, Lando begins to seriously reconsider his stance on the concept of love, and romance, and soulmates. Thoughts begin to creep in, unbidden - is this how his own parents felt for each other?  This easy sort of friendship, this overwhelming fondness? He falls, falls dangerously down a hole of daydreams and what-ifs and _I would kill for you_ and _I would die for you_ and _this is the best my life has ever been._

They fly together, and then one day they land on Bespin.

The details of the night are blurry around the edges. A game of sabacc with the locals, just like any other. Lando beats them time after time. When he’s informed that he’s just won ownership and administration of the city they’re on, he and Han laugh uproariously, both at Lando’s talent for gambling and at the incredible stupidity of whichever rich aristocrat was dumb enough to put an entire _city_ in the pot for a game of sabacc with an offworlder. Eventually, as the planet’s long night fades into sunrise through the windows, Lando finds that he’s beaten everyone in the room. It’s just him, and Han, sitting across from each other at a sabacc table.

“Sweeten the pot, sweetheart,” Han is saying. “Put in something real big.”  They’re both drunk, and Han has this sly kind of smirk on his face that Lando can’t quite remember seeing before.

“What?” Lando says, grinning back. It’s an honest grin, which is what Lando will remember later on; Han’s smirk, and Lando smiling genuinely in return. “What’d’you want outta this one, Han? Lemme guess, nightly favors again? The,” and Lando breaks into laughter again, “the city I just won?”

Han barks out a laugh. “Mm, how about the _Falcon?_ ”

Lando is drunk, so he doesn’t give this concept as much thought as he really should. It’s actually mildly bewildering to his incapacitated higher thinking; why would Han want the _Falcon?_ It’s something they both own. Han already has his claim. He shrugs. “Sure.”

They play, and they play, and when Han wins - against all odds, because Han has always been _terrible_ at sabacc - Lando leans back in his chair, laughing.

“Guess you’ve got the _Falcon,_ then, you handsome devil,” Lando jokes. “Take her, then, she’s all yours.”

Han raises his eyebrows at Lando, as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing. Lando is still not unsettled by any of this; Han does many strange things, sometimes, and Lando has learned to accept it. Lando simply cocks an eyebrow back at him and rises, swaying. “I’m gonna go see if I get a special bedroom for being the new whatever-Administrator. Join me?”

Han’s mouth twitches up at the corners. “In a bit. I need’ta go check up on my shiny new ship, first.”

Lando laughs again. This is also something he will remember very clearly, later on; the night was one of laughter. He stumbles off, assuming Han is right behind him, and, somehow, ends up finding his way into a room he assumes is his own. The bed is warm, and he is drunk and tired, but his brain still takes the time to note that these are better lodgings than anything the two of them have seen in months. He falls asleep waiting, fuzzily, for Han to come in and join him, to sleep beside him as he always does.

When Lando wakes up, the _Falcon_ is gone.

 

* * *

 

The first few days feel like a glitchy holovid. His sense of reality flickers in and out, in and out. He lies sleeplessly in the official’s quarters, turns to the person who should be lying next to him and every time, _every goddamn time_ he’s surprised when Han’s not there.

 _Han is going to come back,_ he thinks. _That was our ship. The_ Falcon _was our ship. If he wanted his name on the title I would have given it to him. He must have known that- he must have known that I would have given him anything he wanted. He didn’t have to, to take it, to leave me here -_

He’s peripherally aware of people trying to get through to him on his comm. He’s some kind of bigshot to them now, apparently. The man in charge of Cloud City. Lando can’t bring himself to care. If Han were here, they would have already lost the whole goddamn operation in a game of sabacc and left for more exciting pastures. He only touches his comm when he tries to call Han, and those calls never go through.

On the eighth day after Lando loses the _Millenium Falcon_ , an aide (he has aides now?) finally slices through the encryption on the door to his new quarters, datapad in hand, grim-but-determined look on her face. He knows he looks like poodoo.

The aide straightens her spine and clears her throat. “Sir,” she says, drawing an air of resolve about her, “we of Cloud City are wondering - if you will take over administrative operations. At any point. Or if you will... delegate, at the very least.” She pauses. “Because, and all due respect, sir, the facility does not run smoothly if our leader is ignoring his administrative responsibilities.”

 _Responsibilities_? Oh, if Han could see him now. How did he get into this situation? How _dare_ Han leave this, this _problem_ to Lando, how _dare_ he abscond with Lando’s ship and leave Lando with _responsibilities_ , how dare he leave and _not come back_ -

Lando’s fingers curl into his palms. The sting of his nails on his skin brings him back. “Thank you, miss,” he grits out. “I will take care of the problem. You may leave.”

“Sir - !” the aide protests, but backs down and flees at his glare.

Responsibilities. Gods. If he’d known _responsibilities_ were what would come out of winning the thing in that sabacc game, he would never have played.

...if he’d never played, he’d have never lost the _Falcon_ to Han, and they would have left together as they always did, and Cloud City would have been just another brief stop in their whirlwind of a life.

Lando has never wished more desperately that he could turn back time.


End file.
